pegasus nlp blog
practical nlp applications & ideas
Time to sell yourself
Many people attend job interviews or on-job appraisals with a naive belief that if the look good, feel confident, and do a good job of answering questions they’ll succeed.
This approach is naive because to is not taking into account the dynamics operating oin an interview and, especially, it is not looking at the interview from a key viewpoint –that of the interviewer.
The interview is a selling opportunity
In an interview you are in competition with a number of others, unknown to you, so you have to ensure you convince the interviewer that you are the best for the job – and that if the interviewer backs you this will enhance rather than threaten their career.
‘I’m a good manager!’
No doubt Jack believes he is doing a good job in how he handled Mohan. In his view that’s the way to efficiently breeze through an appraisal: tick all the right boxes to keep HR happy and make sure your people know who’s in charge. (By the way, if you have not yet read the article about Jack’s appraisal it would be a good idea to do this before continuing).
That’s how we do things around here
It is more than likely that Jack has been taught this approach, or picked up the style from his own managers, or was hired for his ability to manage in this way.
It’s also quite likely that senior management has no awareness, and possibly little real interest, in how their ‘front line’ troops are being managed and led – and that, rather than ‘managing by walking about’ (MBWA) they manage by data, using reports and spreadsheets to know what is happening.
And we can make a pretty reasonable guess as to the reliability of the data on which they rely from the manner in which Jack ensured Mohan’s appraisal ticked the right boxes and in the right way. Continue reading
How not to do an appraisal
Sitting in Caffe Nero a few days ago I had the uncomfortable experience of watching and hearing a loud and brash young manager (unintentionally, I think) humiliating a soft-spoken direct report.
As appraisals go it was a pretty thorough example of how not to do it.
Rapport – what rapport?
There was no quality of rapport. The manager was clicking his pen, constantly shifting his position in his chair, bouncing his knees under the table as if to an internal fast paced rhythm, he’d start off his very loud comments by looking briefly at his victim and then continue the comments in a quite mechanical manner while gazing out the window beside their table, as if reciting a rehearsed spiel.
He (we’ll call him Jack) demonstrated no attempt to understand the other person’s (let’s call him Mohan) viewpoint and in fact showed little interest in Mohan at all. Continue reading
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